The beautiful Ella, the idol of my boyhood and youth, died in India. I
heard the news with indifference; but when I saw the lovely orphan girl
she had left to the guardianship of her brother, I wept bitter tears,
for she reminded me of her mother at the same sinless age; and the sight
of her filled my mind with unutterable anguish, recalling those days of
innocent glee that the corrosive poison of guilt had blotted from my
memory.

My paradise was in the past, but the avenging angel guarded the closed
gates with his flaming sword. My present was the gulf of black despair;
my future was a blank, or worse. Oh, agony of agonies!--how have I
contrived to endure so much, and yet live?

Death! The good alone can contemplate death with composure. Guilt is a
dreadful coward. The bad dare not die. My worst sufferings are comprised
in this terrible dread of death. I have prayed for annihilation; but
this ever-haunting fear of after punishment forbids me to hope for that.
The black darkness--the soul-scorching fire--the worm that never
dies--the yells of the damned--these I might learn to endure; but this
hell of conscience--this being cast out for ever from God and good--what
obstinacy of will could ever teach me to bear this overwhelming,
increasing sense of ill?

* * * * *

Ten long years have passed away; the name of Squire Carlos is almost
forgotten. People used to talk over his death at alehouses, and by the
roadside, but they seldom speak of him now. A splendid monument covers
his mouldering dust. The farmers lounge around it on the Sabbath, and
discuss their crops and the news of the village. They never glance at
the marble slab, or read the tale it tells. The old Hall has passed into
other hands. Sir Walter dissipated his inheritance, and died childless
in a distant land. The lovely little girl is gone, no one knows whither.
The homage of the rising generation is paid to the present Lord of the
Manor, and the glory of the once proud family of Carlos is buried in the
dust with the things that were.

Why cannot I, too, forget? This night--the anniversary of the accursed
night on which I first shed blood, and that the blood of a father, is as
vividly impressed upon my mind as though ten long years had not
intervened! How terribly long have they been to me! Is there no
forgiveness for my crime? Will God take vengeance for ever?

My mother still lives, but her form droops earthward. Sad, si